The Uncommon Reader

What would happen if the Queen became a reader of taste and discernment rather than of Dick Francis? The answer is a perfect story ... The Uncommon Reader is none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely (JR Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett, and the classics) and intelligently. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. She comes to question the prescribed order of the world, and loses patience with much that she has to do. In short, her reading is subversive. The consequence is, of course, surprising, mildly shocking and very funny.

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LibraryThing Review

User Review - kaulsu - www.librarything.com

What a silly little read--but utterly delightful. Perfect book to read when life, family, work, whatever, has laid you low. A fast (they call it a "Novella," but it's really just a long short story ...Read full review

LibraryThing Review

User Review - ParadisePorch - www.librarything.com

What a delightful surprise this little book is! The Queen of England discovers reading for pleasure with consequences for her realm. I laughed out loud at the end of this book.Read full review

About the author (2010)

Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds, West Yorkshire. He decided to apply for a scholarship at Oxford University. He was accepted by Exeter College, Oxford from which he graduated with a first-class degree in history. He was born on May 9, 1934; he is an English author, actor, humorist and playwright. Bennett was made an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford in 1987. He was also awarded a D.Litt by the University of Leeds in 1990 and an Hon. PhD from Kingston in 1996. In October 2008 Bennett announced that he was donating his entire archive of working papers, unpublished manuscripts, diaries and books to the Bodleian Library free of charge, as a gesture of thanks and repaying a debt he felt he owed to the UK's social welfare system that had given him educational opportunities which his humble family background would otherwise never have afforded. In 2015 his title, Six Poets: Hardy to Larkin: An Anthology by Alan Bennett, made The New Zealand Best Seller List. He also made the list in 2016 with his title The Lady in the Van.